If you look out of the window,' my colleague said,
you will see that there are a certain number of children in your car.' I looked out of the window and saw a large crowd of old women, young women and children (but no babies) assembled on the pavement opposite; they had with them a fleet of empty prams and soap-boxes on wheels and were wait- ing, as I later discovered, to collect huge cardboard boxes con., taming envelopes to which, in the privacy of their homes, they would affix sticky labels with addresses on them before return- ing the end-product. My colleague had been right. Three small camp-followers of this curious expedition were having a wonderful time in my car, which, though it began life (in 1930) as a stately Rolls Royce limousine, is now a rather hearse-like shooting-brake. I stuck my head out and, in tones as dulcet as the mighty roar of London's traffic would permit, asked whether somebody would possibly get her children out of my car. Several of the ladies heard me, and the children's mother, who was deep in disputation, was put in the picture by her neighbours. She took in the situation at a glance, went to the car, hoicked the children out and then directed up at me a stare of basilisk ferocity. ' Why can't you lock it ? ' she yelled. Cowed by the righteous indignation in her tone, I slunk back to my desk; and it was not until I looked out of the window a few minutes later, and saw that the citizens of the future were now climbing about on top of the bonnet, that my sense of personal guilt began slowly to ebb away.
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